Ron Howard, Beyonce, Jay-Z
When Ron Howard blew into Toronto for TIFF recently he held a Q&A session after the screening of his Jay-Z documentary Made In America.
Sarah was there for the event and wrote a story about it.
One of the things Howard said: “I was watching Jay-Z and I thought of Frank Sinatra. Which doesn’t really make sense. But good is good.”
To read the whole story head over to Huffington Post Music Canada by clicking here.
Filed under Concerts, Films, Music, Shameless Promotion
Dan Mangan
The Sept. 13 edition of my Polaris People column is online over at the Polaris Music Prize website.
In this edition we learned about Dan Mangan, Arcade Fire and Tegan And Sara news.
To read the column go here.
Filed under Music, Shameless Promotion
12-12-12 Concert Benefiting The Robin Hood Relief Fund To Aid The Victims Of Hurricane Sandy
The Risky Fuel household experienced an electric jolt of concern recently after finding out that Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein didn’t appreciate an uncomfortably valid characterization Sarah made about Kristen Stewart in an article she wrote about the aftermath of the 12.12.12 documentary gala screening at TIFF 2013.
During a post-screening Q&A Weinstein talked about how, for $500,000, they had arranged for the Twilight actress to meet ‘n’ greet with an Arabian prince while at the charity concert to aid victims of Hurricane Sandy. And, there’s more… but you’ll have to ask her about it in person.
Let’s just say we had the conversation “What if I get blacklisted?” Our conclusion: you can’t blacklist people who don’t actually have much of anything to be blacklisted from, so here’s to being poor, powerless, insignificant and… free.
Weinstein was also mighty unhappy the concert’s organizing posse couldn’t force Led Zeppelin to reunite.
To actually understand what all I’m talking about, head over to Huffington Post Music Canada and read the story here.
Filed under Concerts, Films, Shameless Promotion
Broken Social Scene
The latest edition of my Polaris People column is online over at the Polaris Music Prize website.
This week we investigate some of the many evolving new Broken Social Scene connections, track the excitement for Arcade Fire and find a use for Colin Stetson‘s music.
To read the column go here.
Filed under Music, Shameless Promotion
There was no Cronut Burger for me.
Yesterday I properly completed my annual pilgrimage to the Canadian National Exhibition to eat bizarre fair foods. Once again it was a full-on adventure.
The marquee attraction this year was Epic Burger’s “Cronut Burger,” a hamburger made from a bun fused from croissant and donut, all with a maple bacon jam atop it. Alas, said maple bacon jam made 223 people ill from Staphylococcus aureus toxin a week earlier and when I went to buy one yesterday it had understandably been banned from sale.
Of note, I was this close to purchasing a Cronut Burger on the day it poisoned everyone into barfing uncontrollably and shitting their pants. That was the same night as the Jane’s Addiction/Alice In Chains concert and as I passed through the Ex to go to the Molson Canadian Amphitheatre for the show I stopped in the Food Building for dinner. Unfortunately (or fortunately), the lineup for the Cronut Burger was too long so I had Jalapeno Poppers somewhere else instead.
I did, however, make up for it by eating some other horrible things which I have photographed and rated below for your vicarious thrills.
Check them out:
Nutella Sweet Potato Fries. For deep fryer food these fries were pretty much perfectly done. There was too much Nutella, though, and I’m convinced this put me into a mild diabetic coma for the next three hours. 6/10
Fountain Cola. The tyranny of Coca-Cola products continues at the Ex. (Try to find a healthy drink. I challenge you.) So we gave in and got that fountain machine refill deal again. First blast was root beer with vanilla. It was ok. 5/10
Breakfast Dog. A hot dog with scrambled egg on it, wrapped in chicken bacon. I’m a bit of fastidious eater, so when food is messy I consider it an insult. For this meal three separate chunks of egg had landed on my shirt before I had even taken a bite. That, and the chicken bacon was gross. 3.3/10
Nutella Jalapeno Poppers. This was one of things I had on the escape-the-Cronut night. The Poppers were standard pub fare, but well done, and the Nutella was more discreetly layered this time. 5. 7/10
Wild Child Kitchen’s Wild Cacao Smoothie. When I was in my diabetic coma I declared we needed a healthy drink. After hunting for ages we found the Wild Child Kitchen, which served up juices, smoothies and vegan dishes. This was Sarah’s drink and it was bammed up with cacao. Too much I’d say. 5.8/10
Wild Child Kitchen’s juice. I had a watermelon/cuccumber/lemon juice thing and it was hella good. Also, as a cost-to-labor ratio, the gals at Wild Child were super-busting their asses to make our drinks compared to the efforts of other vendors. 7.3/10
Corn Dog and Ice Tea. This was also from Cronut night. Standard Corn Dog… 6/10. Fountain ice tea… 4/10.
Mongolian Beef Flatbread. The thing about white people is they’re scared of that thar foreigner food. Like beef, carrots, bean sprouts and onions in gravy on bread. There was no lineup for this Mongolian place and it was great. 7/10
S’more Dog. A chicken wiener dipped in chocolate with graham cracker bits and marshmallows on it. This was wrong. It wasn’t as fundamentally horrible as the Chocolate Eclair Dog I ate last year, it just made no sense. And it was messy. It WAS a conversation piece, though. Multiple people came up and talked to me while I was eating it. 2.3/10
Additional reading:
Things I ate at the CNE in 2016. Bug Bistro’s Bug Dog and Fran’s Blueberry Milkshake with a slice of real blueberry pie.
Things I ate at the CNE in 2015. Including Frosted Flakes Chicken On A Stick and The S&M Burger.
Things I ate at the C.N.E. in 2014. Including Cocoa Chicken and the Thanksgiving Turkey Waffle.
Things I ate at the C.N.E. in 2012. Including the Chocolate Eclair Dog and Bacon Nation Nutella BBBLT.
Things I ate at the C.N.E. in 2011. Including the Krispy Kreme Hamburger and Deep Fried Twix.
Things I ate at the C.N.E. in 2010. Including Deep Fried Butter and Taco In A Bag. I
Filed under Food, Recollections, The Misadventures Of
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